


...and they were (deer) roommates!

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Prompt Fic, Sharing a Bed, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: This was fine, and it was totally chill, and friends slept in the same bed all the time! They did! So why was he acting like this was weird? It totally wasn’t weird, it was fine and normal and—and okay, the deer was absolutely staring a hole through his soul, so sleeping on this side wasn’t going to work.Ashley has trouble falling asleep because of all the noise in the lodge. Across the hall, Chris is ALSO having trouble sleeping, but for markedly different reasons. Namely, the godawful deer head mounted on the wall. Which is the lesser of two evils? Well, they're gonna find out. And maybe, just maybe...they'll discover a few other things, too.
Relationships: Ashley Brown/Chris Hartley
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	...and they were (deer) roommates!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElliePollie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElliePollie/gifts).



Chris was having just…a hell of a time falling asleep. That was a strange thing in and of itself because normally he wasn’t the kind of person who needed to toss and turn or flip through his phone or count sheep or any of that garbage to doze off. Nah, normally all he needed to do was lie down, take off his glasses, and BOOM! DreamLand, baby.

Then again, there wasn’t usually a sullen deer corpse staring him down in his bed, so maybe the whole insomnia thing was making more sense than previously thought.

Every time he visited the lodge, he made a mental note to track down whoever the Washingtons had hired to do the interior decorating and give them a piece of his mind; without fail, he’d forget those plans the second he was in the cable car heading home, but like…this time, for sure. _For sure_. To prove that point to himself, he grabbed for his phone on the nightstand, hand smacking ineffectually at the wood until he finally found it.

‘ **FIND DESIGNER,** ’ he typed like an old person on Facebook, way too tired to be assed to turn his caps lock off, ‘ **WRITE STRONGLY WORDED EMAIL**.’

There was no way in hell he was remembering what that was all about in the morning, but that was a problem for Tomorrow-Chris to deal with. Tonight-Chris had his own problems, and number one on that considerable list was, of course, the aforementioned deer.

Ooh, he was a big one. A five-point buck. Six-point? He didn’t actually know what any of that shit meant, and sure, he had his phone in his hands so he _could’ve_ just pulled up good ol’ Google and checked, but clogging up his notes app was one thing—the thought of shouting ‘ **5 PT BUCK????** ’ into the void of the internet like his granddad looking for a good chili recipe was another entirely. He set his phone back onto the nightstand and rolled over onto his stomach, turning his head away from the accusatory gaze of the thing’s eyes.

Why had they hung it so close to the bed? That was the _real_ question. If they’d mounted it _over_ the bed, this wouldn’t be a problem, but of course they hadn’t, of course they’d mounted it _right there_ , a horrible horned guardian angel to watch over whoever was unlucky enough to get that room during their stay. Eugh. Even with the back of his head to the deer, he could _feel_ it behind him, staring into infinity with those glassy—A knock on the door shattered that line of thought, and that was honestly probably for the best.

Or at least he _thought_ it had been a knock on the door. It had sure _sounded_ like a knock on the door, but when his mumbled “What is it?” went without a reply, he started to second-guess himself. He frowned into the pillow, waiting to see if another would come, or if he’d only imagined it. “Hello?” he tried again, lifting his head from the pillow that time, hoping it would help, only to be struck with a horrifying thought.

What if this was some Edgar Allan Poe bullshit? What if the knocking was _actually_ the restless spirit of the deer come to exact its revenge on everyone in the lodge? Everyone who had made a mean comment about all the antler-based furniture? What would a deer’s vengeance even entail?!

The door creaked open, casting a sliver of light across the room. Without his glasses on he couldn’t see much besides general shapes, but the silhouette standing against the hall light was definitely a person and not a deer, so he figured he was probably in the clear.

“Sorry, did I wake you up? I didn’t want to keep knocking, but like…ugh.”

Okay, he was not in the clear, he was _absolutely not in the clear_. “Oh, uh, nah, not really, I was, uh…” He quickly turned back around, feeling for his glasses on the nightstand and promptly knocking his phone onto the floor in the process. Smooth move, real smooth. “Just thinking.” Aw fuck it. Inexplicably, he found the pull-cord of the lamp before he found his goddamn glasses; he pulled it, lighting the room with a puny, yellowish glow. Sliding his glasses on, he propped himself up on his elbows, trying to assume something even vaguely resembling a casual position. “What’s up?”

Ashley closed the door behind her, its latch closing with a soft _click_ that shot through his brain like a bullet. Well this was…unanticipated. “I can’t sleep,” she sighed, taking a step into the room before recoiling, her lips pulling back in a grimace. “Oh, blech, I forgot this was the—”

“The deer room?” Chris finished for her. He swept an arm out to gesture at the godawful head on the wall. “Yeah, welcome. Please enjoy your stay.”

Her eyes stayed on the thing, seeming to track it as she made her way towards the bed. It was like she expected it to spring to life and clomp its way through the door like some sick reimagining of _Bambi_ and honestly? He couldn’t blame her for that. “Why didn’t you just…take it down?”

“Uh, you think I didn’t _try?_ ” He scrounged up every iota of his self-restraint to keep from reacting when she sat on the very edge of the mattress, but it was a difficult thing. “It’s bolted.”

“Okay, that’s weird.”

“Tell me about it. I made up my mind—this is the year I finally buckle down and have Josh ask his parents who did the decorating. Between you and me? I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t some long-lost relative of Ed Gein. This place is more body parts than bricks, I swear to Christ…”

She laughed and shook her head at that—and yeah, okay, maybe ‘laugh’ was a little generous, maybe it was more like she breathed out particularly hard through her nose, but it was close enough to a laugh to make his stomach flip-flop the way it always did when any of his jokes landed with her. “Y’know, for some reason I feel like I remember someone saying Mr. Washington handled all that himself.”

“Mmm. Makes sense. I always kinda suspected Big Bob had some sort of weird antler fetish.” He finally sat himself up against the headboard. Something about lying down and talking felt awkward, even unintentionally _weird_. You didn’t half-recline in bed while someone else (especially a _girl_ someone else) tried to have a conversation with you about interior design, that was just…well, he didn’t really know _what_ it was, but it was probably _something_.

That time, Ash’s laugh was significantly more genuine. “Ew! Shut up—”

“I’m just _saying_.”

“Well _stop_ just saying, then! I don’t want to think about—”

“Don’t wanna think about what? Bob lovingly caressing the skull of a, shit what else has horns? Uh…a bull, let’s say…lovingly caressing the skull of a bull as he—”

He should’ve seen the pillow coming, but he didn’t. It thumped him square in the chest, Ash pulling it back as one might a mace or a flail, preparing for another strike, should it be necessary.

“Don’t yuck his yums, Ash,” he said flatly, trying and failing to keep from snickering, himself. “That’s the kind of behavior that’ll get you labeled as ‘problematic’ these days.”

She clucked her tongue but dropped her weapon, setting it back down in its earlier spot next to his. “I’m seriously regretting even coming in here. I hope you know that.”

“The judgmental glare of the dead deer wasn’t enough to do the trick, huh? It’s _me_ that does it? _I’m_ the nail in that proverbial coffin?”

“Something like that.” He watched as she wrapped her arms around herself, hands cupping her elbows through the sleeves of her pajama top, and it could’ve been his imagination (given how tired he was, that was probably a safe bet), but it sure seemed like her smile was momentarily replaced by something else. Something…nervous? Uncertain, definitely. Neither of those were strange to see on Ashley’s face, obviously, but uh, there was something to be said about seeing it flicker in her eyes when she was, um, for lack of better terms, uh, well, essentially in bed with him. “Hey, so, I feel like, crazy stupid asking this, but…”

Again he struggled to find a casual pose. Again he was positive he missed that mark by a country mile. “Yeah-huh?” Cool, totally cool. Natural. Normal.

Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth for a moment, her jaw working up and down as she chewed on it. Then she huffed a breath, dropped her hands onto her lap, and asked him the very last thing he’d ever expected to hear from her. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

“…uh,” he said, the absolute picture of eloquence.

She brought her hands back up, already waving as though she could waft the question from the air. In the dim light from the lamp, he could see her face growing darker, especially around her cheeks and ears. “That was totally weird, right? I get it if it’s super awkward or whatever—”

“I, uh, no it’s cool! It’s cool. I—”

“It’s just that Sam and the twins are hanging out in the room next to mine and they’re watching a really loud movie or something—”

“I mean there’s plenty of—”

“And I think Mike and Emily are like, right across the hall, and they keep having just…really, _really_ loud conversations about,” without looking at him, she curled her fingers into quotation marks in the air, “‘The future of their relationship,’ and it’s just absolutely impossible to _not_ hear any of them, so—”

He cleared his throat and shrugged as noncommittally as he was physically able to, which, for the record, wasn’t especially noncommittal at all. “Hey, look, if you think you can deal with being watched by the Forest Guardian while you catch your z’s, you’re welcome to sleep with me.” He’d jerked his thumb over his shoulder to point at the deer before realizing what had just come out of his mouth. “ _Crash here_ ,” Chris spluttered, feeling a traitorous wave of heat start creeping in from the tips of his ears. “You are totally, completely welcome to _crash here_.”

She giggled, but there was no stomach flip-flopping that time—only red-hot mortification. He couldn’t help picturing the scathing looks he’d get from the other guys if they ever found out about _that_ particular faux pas. For some reason he found it difficult to believe any of them turned into stuttering messes in situations like this…then again, he wasn’t Mike or Matt or (God help them all) Josh, he was just a dork with a pocketful of knock-knock jokes and no real vein of charisma to hide behind, and this was _Ashley_ , and everyone and their grandma knew he’d been head over heels for her since the first time she’d turned those big, doleful eyes of hers on him, and…

Focus. _Focus_.

Clearing his throat a second time, he grabbed a corner of the sheets and turned them over, waving his arm across the barren half of the mattress like a game show host. “Tons of room.”

Her lip did its disappearing act for a second time, and he noticed her eyes move to the goddamn deer as though appraising it, and in that moment he could almost _hear_ the thoughts whirring in her head, could almost _see_ a cartoonish scale weighing her options: on the one hand, noisy people; on the other hand, wide-eyed hunting trophy and wider-eyed tech nerd without enough social wherewithal to refrain from unironically saying things like ‘you’re welcome to sleep with me.’

Oh, if only he could know what made that scale tip the way it did. Ashley scooched herself further over the edge of the bed, busying herself with tucking her legs into the sheets, and boy oh boy, okay, so this was actually happening.

He had prepared himself for a lot of weird shit going down while they were in Blackwood (frostbite, bear attacks, running out of food and having to eat each other like the Donner party, and dealing with the hot tub malfunctioning all included), but a sleepover with Ash was uh, it was a contingency he hadn’t planned for.

“You good?” he asked once she’d gotten herself nestled into her side of the bed.

“Mhm,” she hummed in return, rolling herself onto her side so her back was to him, pulling the covers up over her shoulder. “Sorry if my feet are cold.”

“How will I ever survive.” One tiny _kerchunk_ and the lamplight was out, throwing them back into wintry darkness, only the snow outside the window casting any sort of glow about the room. He took his glasses off and set them down on the nightstand, his brain buzzing with the gravity of the situation.

Jesus Christ, Josh could never find out about this. He would never, _ever_ live it down—not if he lived to be a hundred and thirty.

Sliding down from where he’d been sitting against the headboard, Chris made himself comfortable on his side too, keeping his back to her. That was the safe way to go, right? Nothing said ‘platonic bed sharing’ quite like sleeping back-to-back. This was fine, and it was totally chill, and friends slept in the same bed all the time so why was he acting like this was _weird_ because it totally wasn’t _weird_ , it was _fine_ and _normal_ and—

And the deer was absolutely staring a hole through his soul, so sleeping on this side wasn’t going to work. Not even a little. It only took one bleary-eyed glance at the wall to remind him why he’d been on his stomach in the first place. He didn’t even need his glasses—the marbles wedged in the head’s eye sockets were big enough that they looked like a pair of black spotlights bearing down on him.

“Hate that fucking thing…” he muttered quietly enough that only he could hear…only for Ashley to immediately snort in laughter. “Oh, this is funny to you?” He rolled onto his back, readjusting the sheets as he did so. “Super glad my agony amuses you so much.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“No? You wanna switch sides, then?”

“Um…no thanks.”

“That’s what I thought. Mind your own beeswax.”

She laughed again, the blankets rustling with each shake of her shoulders. The laughter trailed off as she burrowed herself deeper into the bed. Of course _she’d_ be able to fall asleep without any issue—she wasn’t the one who had to deal with the trophy head peering over her, and, in all likelihood, she probably wasn’t grappling with the same middle-school-level butterflies he was. _God_ , he envied her that.

Except almost as soon as he had that thought, he was surprised by the sensation of the mattress dipping beneath him.

“Do you really think it’s a fetish?”

He turned, finding Ash lying on her back as well, her arms folded over the blanket. “…I’m sorry, excuse me?”

Her eyes were closed, but he could so easily imagine her rolling them. “The antlers and stuff. You raised the possibility, and now I like…eugh, I can’t stop thinking about Mr. Washington, like…”

“Lovingly stroking a bull skull as he—”

“Mhm, mhm, stop.” She laughed, which made him laugh, and before long they were both covering their faces against the tidal wave of hilarity that only seemed to come to the over-tired. “I can’t and _won’t_ let that be my last thought before I fall asleep,” she warned him, “Absolutely not.”

Even though her eyes were shut, he raised a hand in his own defense. “Hey, for what it’s worth, no, I doubt it’s a sex thing.” Except…well, if anyone knew the Washingtons and their quirks, it was _him_ , and if he was being completely honest, uh, it probably wasn’t _totally_ implausible. “I mean. At least I _sincerely_ hope it’s not.”

That brought on another wave of giggles from Ashley. Her voice came out choked and muffled from under her palms as she pressed them to her face. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, _ew_.”

“It’s _probably_ just that whole Grizzly Adams thing he’s got going on, y’know? He wants to impress the people who come up here! Doesn’t want ‘em to know he’s a city slicker who couldn’t tell a pinecone from a possum if his life depended on it.”

“And dead animal heads do that, huh?”

“Hey, you know how _Josh_ is, imagine the stories his _dad_ must tell to people.” The nervous fluttering in his stomach was so much more bearable when he could laugh it out. “Just picture it, okay? He’s got a bunch of his bigwig, hotshot Hollywood friends gathered here for a weekend…”

“Mmm.”

“Are you picturing it?”

“I’m picturing it.”

“You don’t sound very convincing.”

“I’m _picturing it!_ ”

“Okay, good. So they’re all sitting around the fireplace, drinking their scotch, or whatever it is bigwig, hotshot Hollywood types drink.”

With a sniff and another errant giggle, Ash said, “ _Bourbon_ ,” very matter-of-factly.

“Bourbon, yeah, thanks. One of them points to one of the dead things on the wall, asks what that’s all about, and Bob proceeds to explain that he killed the thing with his bare hands.”

“Oh my God.”

“ _And_ he did it in front of all the thing’s friends, too. To like, y’know, send a message.” He paused, grinning when she finally slid her hands down to uncover the incredulous look she was giving him. “To be fair, no one _totally_ believes it, but there’s _juuust_ enough doubt—” Snickering, he swatted her hand away before she could bop him, “Or maybe it’s just like, a requirement that you decorate all your family homes with dead things when you make horror movies for a living.”

“Yeah,” she drawled sarcastically, “Like how accountants use tax returns for wallpaper and surgeons use scalpels instead of silverware. What are you even _talking about?_ ”

They rode out that crest of laughter until it tapered off, leaving them once again in the quiet of the bedroom, nothing but the occasional creak of wood or whistle of their own breath to disturb them.

He wasn’t sure what made him do it—it was out of character at best and downright rude at worst, if she had actually managed to fall asleep during that time—but the question was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “Hey, not that I mind, cuz I-I-I don’t, but inquiring minds must know…did you go door-to-door checking for vacancies, or did I do something special to win the sleepover treatment?”

Ash’s side of the bed was quiet for just long enough that he wondered whether she _had_ drifted off…but then she made a soft noise, as though trying to decide on an answer. “I dunno,” she muttered, somehow sounding more guarded than groggy. “I guess we didn’t get a lotta time to hang out today.”

Ah, _there_ was the flip-flop in his gut. If he wasn’t careful, that thing was gonna squish the butterflies making their home in there. “Oh, yeah, I guess not, huh?” It _had_ been a crazy day of trekking back and forth to the guest cabin, and Sam had insisted on leading them on a hike to see the aurora borealis _after_ that, so…the story checked out. Except… “This counts as hanging out, in your mind?”

There was a quiet rustle. He thought she probably shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He desperately wanted to clear his throat again, but that would be weird, wouldn’t it? That was a lot of throat clearing in very little time. Jokes were the safer way to go. “Well I’m honored you’ve chosen to spend your time with me. Unconscious or not.”

Silence from her side again. He was given just enough time to worry that he’d said something that put her off when she moved again, surprising him by rolling onto her side to face him. Usually he’d be glad that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, that things were blurry, but Ash was close enough that it didn’t seem to matter; he could see her well enough to register the expression on her face, the earnestness in her eyes. He watched her give him another weak, one-shouldered shrug before saying, in as serious a voice as he’d ever heard from her, “I _always_ want to spend my time with you.”

Chris blinked as though she’d reached across that negligible gap between them and slapped him right across the face. That was, uh. Well that was something. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat, ending up clearing his throat again after all. “I, uh… _really?_ ”

It was probably because of the horrendous way his voice had cracked when he said it, but he watched the corners of Ashley’s mouth turn up with another bubble of quiet laughter. “Um…yeah, actually.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and as it was pulled back out of her face, there was no hiding how deeply her cheeks were flushing.

This was the part where he was supposed to say something, right? Assuming he hadn’t actually fallen asleep under the watchful gaze of the deer and was currently having one hell of a dream, that is. “Well that’s convenient,” he began, cringing almost immediately at the sound of his own voice. “I-I-I mean because, y’know, I…” Hoo boy, deep breath, Cochise. “I always wanna spend mine with _you_.”

She watched him for a second that seemed to stretch on like a lifetime, saying nothing, her eyes scanning his face for something he couldn’t even begin to parse. Then she pulled her lip between her teeth again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I…” It was _upsettingly_ difficult to keep himself from staring at her lip as she chewed on it. “Yeah. You’re, um…” Again, it was out of his mouth before he could stop it, and Christ alive, he wished he could take it back. “Very _deer_ to me.”

A wrinkle of confusion marred the space between her eyebrows for an instant…until he slowly ( _so slowly_ ) lifted a finger to point towards the wall. Her line of sight flickered to the spot behind him…then her expression fell back into its usual exasperation. “I hate you,” she said, shaking her head. “I—oh my _God,_ I hate you.” She was laughing as she said it, though, and shocking him further, she actually moved herself closer, tucking herself up against his side. “We’re gonna have a serious talk about _that_ in the morning.”

There was no fighting the nervous burble of laughter that crept its way up from his stomach when he felt her nestle her head into the crook of his neck. “Oh _are_ we?” With the tentative movements of someone defusing a bomb, he angled himself to better set his chin atop her head. “Are you saying it would…be _hoove_ me to stop talking, then?”

“I could leave, you know.”

Chris took it upon himself to curl his arm around her waist, jokingly trapping her there, and was beyond delighted when her only response was to snuggle closer. “I’ll be quiet,” he said, knowing full well it was a promise he’d _never_ be able to keep. “Cross my _hart_ and hope to die.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I'm sorry, you guys thought I'd write something about these two that DIDN'T involve horrible jokes and puns???
> 
> Clearly you know nothing of my work. ;P
> 
> Stay safe out there, and take care of yourselves <3


End file.
